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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Ondale! Ondale!

I'm only two days into this training schedule (with multiple weeks of seat-of-my-pants training behind me) and I feel great! With the longer warmup and some stretches, the shins have been feeling good and my legs feel really good too.

I ran the same exact path today as I did yesterday - a three mile out and back - and when I headed out, I let my body find whatever pace it wanted to go. I wasn't going to push myself today because Wednesdays will be my mid-week recovery runs. Anyone who knows me knows that short recovery runs don't go well. haha I made it a mile before the evil plan hatched! I'll continue on to the turn around at the current pace and then see if I can high tail it back and beat yesterday's time. The whole "recovery run" thing will work much better once I get Wednesday's distance higher than Tuesday and Thursday. But until then...

I hit the turn around at about 11 minutes and had to beat a 10:21 on the way back. The nice part about this course (and part of the reason I run it so often) is that it has gentle hills. My mind works best when you give me small little tasks to complete (i.e. make it to the corner, just to the top of the hill, ease down this hill, final stretch) as opposed to one straight and flat shot. Anyways, I felt great on the way back. I wasn't pushing it hard, but I had it a notch higher.

I finished in 21:07, fourteen seconds faster than yesterday. And to beat that, I felt better today than I did yesterday. Double bonus!!

Keeping my watch on hand will certainly be a threat to slower pace days (I have a lot to teach my competitively oriented mind still), but it's fun to keep track of pace! The true test will be seeing what pace I hold for Saturday's long run (6 miles); 7:45 maybe?

Questions

1. How was your workout today?

2. Do you ever have spontaneous challenges mid-workout that you simply can't refuse?The two goals of a coach - as I've always been told - are to tell you when enough is enough and to make sure you're pointed in the right direction. I need a coach!

Great job! Yes, I change my mind mid-workout as well. I used to be ridged & strict with sticking to a program. As I grew as a runner I began to learn how to listen to the feel of each workout & adjust accordingly. Well done! What aspects do you feel that you want some coaching?

Second rest day of the week was Wednesday. THAT, my friend, is unheard of for me. But I will be hitting the pool and run today.

i pretty much always start out my runs planning to slack then mid run it turns into something crazy. Like tuesday was supposed to be an esy 4 pace run but somehow it turned into a tempo run. Go figure!??!?

My workout was amazing yesterday! The weather, the music, the legs felt great, I felt my muscles move like a machine rather than dragging lead weights. I used to run watching the ground a lot...now that I've started focusing on mini points I reliaze that I NEED to make mini goals throughout each run...it keeps me going!!

Having the self discipline to hold back on a run when the training plan calls for slow/recovery is something I have always struggled with. This gets easier with experience, but always requires a great deal of effort.

I set my challenges at the beginning of a workout and structure the intensity of the workout accordingly. i.e. crush that hill, sprint that section, hold that pace. I rarely deviate from the plan set at the beginning of the workout, otherwise I would hammer the whole thing and thus injury prone.

I am so like this! I planned on taking it real slow today because I haven't done many long runs and I wanted to get all the miles in. But as soon as I started the run I knew I was gonna be pushing it a bit. I didn't go all out, but it was no leisurely run. And I broke it up 1 mile at a time. "just finish this mile at a good pace and then you can slow a little" and so on and so on :)

I often try to challenge myself on my runs. I try to push it a little bit further every time I go, especially if I am running the same route. Usually I try to make my mile marker and then go a bit of a way past it- today I only managed to make it to the mile marker :/

Who Is This Guy?

Great question! My name's Kurt. I am a 3x Ironman, an ultrarunner, personal trainer (NASM), running coach (RRCA), and triathlon coach. I started this blog at the beginning of my triathlon journey in 2010 as a way to document my experiences to becoming an Ironman. That goal changed my life and every step continues to reveal new surprises. I keep pushing the boundaries to see where I can go. Occasionally I stop in to document it.